


Todesreich

by E350tb



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 1960s, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Nazi Germany, Antisemitism, But They're Not Doing As Well As They Might Have Hoped, Dark, Gen, I straight up refuse to be the guy who makes a character tag for oskar fucking dirlewanger, Nazi Victory, Nazis, Period-Typical Racism, fuck that guy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2020-10-30 01:36:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20806361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E350tb/pseuds/E350tb
Summary: The year is 1962.It has been nearly two decades since the end of the Second World War. An American ambassador is finally being posted to Berlin. The Nazi Party's grandees bicker, while the SS plot in the shadows. The German economy is collapsing; the state is teetering, and generals are taking sides. A bedridden Hitler hasn't been seen for years.This is the twilight of an empire of death - aTodesreich.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, strictly speaking 'Todesreich' is 'death empire', not 'empire of death,' but that sounds better than Reich des Todes.
> 
> So we're all familiar with those stories where the Nazis win World War II and conquer the whole word - The Man in the High Castle, Wolfenstein, so on. But what about the flip side? What about a world where the Nazis survive into the fifties and sixties, and basically rot from the inside out? It has been done before - Fatherland comes to mind. But it's not been done by me, so there we go.
> 
> This isn't really tethered to a single fandom, although most of the cast will probably be from either SU or VLD. I still haven't worked out the full cast just yet, although I'm close (Shiro's story is mostly plotted out at this stage.)
> 
> This won't be a terribly happy story - even a failed surviving Nazi Germany is one that has had more time to enact it's terrible ideology upon the world. I'll update the tags with more content warnings as we go along, but suffice it to say, I intend to portray the Nazis as they were; a squalid, terrible, evil chapter in human history, devoid of glamour; the bland, ugly evil beneath the braided-uniforms and Wagnerian speeches.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

**Prologue**

_Berlin, 1962_

Tempelhof was the largest airport in the world, or so the regime claimed. It was also one of the emptiest.

The incoming American ambassador had landed to great fanfare on the tarmac, the state-of-the-art Boeing wheeling up to the long, flat, semicircular terminal as the band played old Sousa tunes. The Washington Post filled the air, just audible from within the blue-furnished interior of the plane. Yet only a few other planes could be seen in the distance, nearly all of them bearing the markings of Deutsche Luft Hansa. The only exception was a sad old plane of the French national airline.

The door opened - the band swapped to the American national anthem as Ambassador Clay stepped through the door. At the bottom waited the delegation - the enemy, as some of the embassy’s new guards had quietly called them. At the front stood the beaming, portly martinet himself, one of the faces of the regime for the past three decades, his uniform glittering in the afternoon sunlight. He enthusiastically thrust an arm forward as Clay reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Herr Clay!” he exclaimed. “Welcome to Berlin.”

Clay’s smile looked like he’d just sucked a lemon, but he maintained diplomatic niceties nonetheless.

“Reichmarschall Goering,” he nodded, taking his hand. “It’s good to be here.”

The staff began their procession down the stairs, some more hesitantly than others. Takashi Shirogane in particular had reason for apprehension - he was one of the few Asians in the Foreign Security Service, and his sexual orientation, already carefully hidden from the Foreign Service, was even more unwelcome in Hitler’s Reich. Had Samuel Holt not personally chosen him as his bodyguard, he’d never had received such an important posting - as it was, he wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse.

He briefly felt the bulge under the jacket that indicated his service pistol and glanced towards Goering’s smug, sweating face. _No_, he told himself, _we’re the first diplomatic mission to Berlin since 1941. It’s probably not a good idea to cause a diplomatic incident fifteen seconds after landing._

He pursed his lips.

_Would feel pretty good, though._

As they walked through Tempelhof to the waiting diplomatic cars, their footsteps echoing in the nearly-empty arrivals terminal, Shiro took note of his surroundings. The shops all seemed to be shuttered, save for a single newsagent. There were a few people around, on telephones or in seats, but the animated way they spoke and the fact that they all seemed to be handsome and ‘Aryan’ made Shiro suspect they were plants. A few faded posters called for ‘pure-blooded, independent Germans’ to make new lives in Reichskommissariat Turkestan; it was clear they hadn’t been replaced for a long time. Nearly every official, be they a security guard or a clerk or a bandsman, all wore the insignia of the Luftwaffe.

The Reichsmarschall, who ruled the air force like a personal fief, clearly wanted to make an impression. It had, after all, been his idea to normalise relations with the United States and Great Britain; it was he who had spoken so forcefully about opening markets, about swamping American markets with Fanta and shiny new Volkswagens, and thus saving the Reich’s ailing economy. The whole mission was a cynical ‘hail mary’, the last throw of the dice to keep the ponderous, teetering state on its feet.

Shiro wondered how Goeing would take America’s terms for a trade deal.

They reached the cars - hand-selected, brand new Mercedes-Benz limousines. The Reichsmarschall’s personal car was huge and long, painted a pearl white and accented with gold. It resembled the kind of thing a Hollywood movie star or powerful gangster might drive, it’s obnoxious size augmented by armour plating. The bonnet carried two flags - the stars-and-stripes and the swastika. If Ambassador Clay found this distasteful, he certainly didn’t say it, continuing his conversation with Goering as he climbed into the car.

Shiro climbed into a smaller car a little way back, following Holt and his son (a trainee attache named Matt.) They said nothing as the cars powered away from the airport - Clay and Goering to the Volkshalle, the rest to the new embassy building. They said nothing for a while - the only sound was Matt’s finger’s tapping on the window.

“You tried calling Adam before we left London?” asked Holt.

Shiro shot a glance at the Luftwaffe driver behind the sound-proofed screen. He knew he couldn’t hear, but he didn’t doubt the car was bugged.

“Yes,” he replied. “He didn’t reply.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Shiro understood what that meant. The phones at the embassy would certainly be bugged - if he tried to call Adam again, he risked handing the Nazi government blackmail.

He sighed, gazing back out the window. They left the airport behind, pulling into the grey, concrete streets of modern Berlin. He felt a shiver as he passed each tenement, each sign, each monument labelled with faded or crumbling swastikas.

He felt like he was visiting Rome in its final days.

* * *

_Wewelsburg, 1962_

“The new American ambassador has arrived.”

Heinrich Himmler didn’t turn his head - he was gazing out one of the windows of the Obergruppenführersaal - the General’s Hall - over his Westphalian domain. The sun highlighted his midnight-black uniform; he almost resembled an evil spirit from the dark fairy tales the SS man had been told as a child.

“I see Berlin still hasn’t seen sense, then.”

“No, sir. Speer and Bormann have aligned themselves with Goering, albeit for their own reasons.”

“And the Wehrmacht?”

“Keitel still does whatever he thinks Hitler wants, so it’s difficult to say. Manstein favours opening up to the west, as far as we can tell; Model doesn’t, and we believe both are courting Rommel and Guderian.”

“The Navy?”

“Doesn’t care as long as somebody pays for their new U-Boats.”

Himmler grunted.

“We do have the Hitlerjugend,” continued the underling. “And I think we can rely on the Panzerkorps. And as long as Model thinks Hitler’s will-”

“Model is too inflexible,” said Himmler. “Talk to Rommel and Guderian directly. Guderian is a loyalist to the party, and Rommel can be plied easily.”

For a moment, the SS man thought he could see a hint of a smile on Himmler’s gaunt features.

“For the final destiny of the volk to be accomplished,” Himmler continued, “we must thwart these moderates. For that, we need a unified vision.”

He turned his head - the SS man could not see his eyes, his glasses shining in the sunlight.

“Contact Reinhard and the others and tell them to come,” he said. “I think it’s time they knew of the plan. Only the SS can secure the future of our Fuhrer’s vision.”

“Of course,” nodded the SS man.

He clicked his heels and raised his palm.

“Heil Hitler!”

Himmler returned the gesture almost lazily.

“Heil Hitler, Adolf.”

Adolf Eichmann walked away, leaving Himmler to contemplate. He gazed out, once more, at the natural, _pure_ surroundings of Wewelsburg Castle. This, he reminded himself, was what he fought for. 

The rest would be cleansed with fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Notes:**
> 
> **Tempelhof** was the major Berlin airport of the mid-twentieth century. It closed in 2008 and now serves as an emergency refugee shelter.
> 
> **Reichsmarschall Herman Goering** was one of Hitler's chief subordinates, heading the Luftwaffe (the air force) from 1935 onwards. He had served as a fighter ace in the First World War, commanding the Red Baron's 'Flying Circus' after his death. He fell out of favour after the Battle of Britain, and was captured by the US Army in 1945. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg for his involvement in the Holocaust, but killed himself before he could be hanged.
> 
> **Lucius D. Clay**, historically, was military governor of Berlin after the Second World War. Irony is fun. He attracted some controversy for reducing or commuting the sentences of some Nazis, notably Isle Koch, in order to win the popular support of West Germans during the early part of the Cold War.
> 
> **Heinrich Himmler** was the head of the SS and one of the men most responsible for the Holocaust, which alone cements him as one of the most evil men in history. He also had a weird obsession with the occult (which even Hitler thought was often a bit much). **Wewelsburg** was a castle that he planned to make into his weird SS cult headquarters. Yes, he literally wanted to have a magic castle. If he wasn't so breathtakingly vile, that might be funny.
> 
> The people Himmler and Eichmann discuss are all historical, but we'll get to them later.
> 
> **Adolf Eichmann** was one of the key architects of the Holocaust, and ultimately the only one to have his day in court. He seems to have viewed the utter destruction of an entire people as a normal job for which he was paid, and which he took satisfaction in doing well - as a result, he's become a sort of poster child for the banality of evil.


	2. Chapter I: The Halls of Power

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very special thanks to [realfakedoors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realfakedoors/pseuds/realfakedoors) for realfakeproofreading! Especially in regards to Lance and Keith - nobody writes 'em better.
> 
> 'Blue' in this chapter refers to Blue Pearl. RFD told me there was potential for her being confused with the Blue Lion, so I spent twenty minutes trying to think of a different name, then gave up and decided that Bloop has a sufficient BDE that being confused with a massive fuck-off mechanical lion is entirely appropriate.

**Chapter I: The Halls Of Power**

_Washington DC, 1962_

“General Clay just called, sir. He’s reached the embassy.”

The President exhaled; he seemed to relax ever so slightly.

“Thank Christ,” he muttered.

Blue rubbed her hand slightly as he rubbed his temple, gazing down at his oak deck. He wiped a band of sweat from his forehead and straightened his tie. His beady eyes scanned the room and briefly met hers - in them, she could see conflict. Here he was, sending an envoy to the greatest enemy America had ever faced to create a lasting peace. In some ways, setting a table for Hitler was a betrayal, and both knew it.

“Mr. President?”

She’d only been a baby, and he’d been in the South Pacific, that autumn day in 1943, when America had learned of it’s greatest military disaster. Thirty thousand men lay dead on a beach in southern Italy, with the loss of fifteen warships - the mournful words of General Eisenhower, taking full responsibility for the failure, echoed on every radio in America. Yet for both of them it had changed everything. She grew up in a world terrified of fascism hiding behind every curtain, and he’d built a career on it. Yet now, they were here to make peace.

The press were already repeating the wry comment; ‘only Nixon could go to Berlin.’

Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, arch grey-baiter and cold warrior, reached for the telephone. He dialed the number of the American Embassy in Berlin, before turning back to his staff.

“I’d like to be alone for this,” he said.

Slowly, the men in grey suits began to file out. Blue followed, stepping out into the hallway and taking a deep breath. It almost felt like she’d emerged from underwater.

She knew they needed to do this, but she couldn’t help but feel sick. The idea of offering the olive branch to the Nazis, considering what their thugs would do to someone like her if she lived in Germany… it just felt wrong. It made her skin crawl.

Yet, she supposed, this was politics. She’d expected as much when she took this job, and seen just how low it went. She’d seen Joe Kennedy’s campaigns; how he’d tried to smear one of Vice-President Rockefeller’s aides as a homosexual (and it wounded her that people thought that was wrong.) You had to swim in the muck to make it. And maybe they could change things in Germany. Maybe they could make it freer.

Maybe she was being too optimistic.

* * *

_Berlin, 1962_

Lance McClain hated Berlin, and he’d only been here a day.

The marine sighed as he stood in the guard tower, his heavy rifle leaning against the wall and his helmet removed. Sentry duty was a boring and lonely job on its own, and he was already over it before he’d even reached his post. 

But then, the _real _kicker—he learned that guard duty was not fated to be a thankless job, and he would have a partner. That effectively lifted his spirits, and then dropped them with twenty times more disappointment when he spotted a familiar, dark-haired mullet approach the spot during the same shift change.

_How’d Hunk get out of this?_

If he was up with Hunk, it’d be fine - they could at least talk. But Keith Kogane? _This guy._ The stick up his ass had a stick up its ass. He just stood there, quietly watching the deserted streets around them, his face set into a frown. God, his whole aura just _radiated _with that smug undertone of _I’m-better-than-you_, so much so that on top of _that_ there was an added layer of _I’m-too-good-to-talk-to-you-**because**-I’m-so-much-better-than-you._

Lance sighed heavily and pursed his lips together. He blew against them, making a popping noise - _pop!_

Keith’s hands seemed to grip his rifle ever-so-slightly tighter. Lance noticed. He tucked his hands behind his back, like an officer inspecting his troops, and gazed off into the distance. For a few seconds, all was silent.

_Pop!_

Keith’s shoulders visibly raised, but his focus remained purposefully forward, on the streets. His breathing seemed to become more laboured, his brow furrowing-

_Pop!_

His breathing was definitely louder now, and Lance could _hear_ his teeth grinding against each other. Smirk widening, he leaned in close to Keith’s ear, as if he was about to share a deep, dark secret. His face was set into the single most trollish expression he could possibly manage.

…

…

_Pop!_

Keith’s rifle shot back, the butt slamming right into Lance’s most prized possessions. He winced and cried out, collapsing to the floor and clutching his privates, wheezing and moaning. He spluttered in a raspy voice; “Man down! Man down!”

“You gentlemen wanna explain what you’re doing?”

Lance glanced down. Through his swimming vision he could see the gruff visage of Colonel Iverson, his arms crossed and his lips thin.

“I’ve been viciously assaulted, sir!”

“Sir, Private McClain was deliberately trying to annoy me, sir.”

“I was _not!_ I was just making noises!”

“Shut up!”

Iverson pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Private Kogane,” he said. “Don’t react. It’s what he wants you to do. You’re a marine, you need to be a professional, you understand?”

“Yes sir!” Keith salutes.

“Private McClain?”

“Yes sir?”

“You’re an asshole.”

He sighed heavily and walked away.

Lance climbed to his feet and leaned against the wall, sweating. Keith rolled his eyes as the marine dry-heaved over the side, still squatting from the sudden and unexpected attack on his nether regions.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” he grunted.

“_I may never have children,_” Lance cried melodramatically.

He glanced down, watching as another two marines opened the gate. The Ambassador’s car - a hot-pink Chevrolet limousine, chosen as a symbol of American wealth, drove out onto the street and off towards the government quarter.

“Hey Keith, ever wonder why we can’t have cars like that?”

“Hey Lance, ever wonder what it’s like to be hit in the nuts twice in five minutes?”

“Fine, shutting up…”

* * *

The Volkshalle was a breathtaking monument to hideous waste.

Shiro glanced up at the cavernous roof above the enormous assembly room, covered in gold regalia of Germany and the Nazis. Everything about it was built on a massive scale - the paintings, the sculptures, the truly enormous marble statue of Adolf Hitler at the end of the room. Yet if one looked closely, between the lines in the concrete, one could see the mold building in the cracks. You could smell a strange _dampness _in the air, leaving a chill in its wake that crept far lower than bone-deep.

“It’s almost symbolic,” Matt whispered, and Shiro was rather inclined to agree.

They were walking to a meeting room, Ambassador Clay deep in conversation with their tall, wiry technocrat of a host. Albert Speer was grey and balding, but time hadn’t diminished his passion for architecture. He was pointing at every aspect of the Volkshalle he found interesting and describing it in detail - and Clay was nodding politely and making a heroic effort not to appear as bored as he surely was. Speer wore a leather coat over his traditional brown party uniform, and part of Shiro thought he looked like a Nazi biker.

Next to them was John Profumo, British Ambassador - an up-and-coming Tory with an eye on the Prime Minister’s seat. He’d been forced to spend the morning looking at Speer’s models for grand new buildings, but it was an open secret in political circles that Profumo had an interest in models of a very different kind; specifically of a young and curvaceous kind. Yet he was also a professional and well-regarded, to the point where it was suspected that Prime Minister Butler had dispatched him to Berlin to prevent him from taking his job.

Before long they had left the grand atrium and were walking down a corridor, heading to the big wooden doors that led to one of the Nazi Party meeting rooms. On either side of the door was a guard - a member of the Führerbegleitkommando. These men, who these days were clad in the same tan-brown party uniforms and peaked caps as a party officer, were technically under control of the SS, but in actuality they answered directly to Hitler (or at least the minions who claimed to speak for him.) Shiro locked eyes with one of them - a grizzled, scarred veteran of a thousand nightmares in the East, by the look of him - and fought the urge to shudder.

They saluted, but Speer paid them no heed as he pushed open the door. He led the party inside, snapped to attention, and raised his arm.

“Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler.”

The room was grandly furnished with red carpet and drapes; a massive painting of a caped Hitler, surveying a map of his European conquests like a Roman emperor, covered the opposite wall, and swastikas adorned every pillar. Below the painting of the Fuhrer sat three men, none of whom looked particularly excited about their company. Shiro thought back to his briefings on these men back in Washington.

To the left, Martin Bormann - short, portly, round-faced, his constant expression stern and slightly bewildered. There were few frills on his uniform - just the standard party badge over his breast. On paper, Bormann was little more than Hitler’s secretary, yet this position offered power. He could and did control who could see the Fuhrer and when. Furthermore, as head of the Chancellory, he had official control of the Nazi Party itself, and while it was difficult to call Nazis a unified entity these days, it still counted for something when dealing with an errant clerk or rogue governor.

In the middle, Herman Goering, the portly, flamboyant head of the Luftwaffe - which, under Goering’s personal insistence, had expanded to include not only planes but considerable ground troops. The once black-haired Goering had gone bald at some point in the late 1950s, something that clearly irritated him given his insistence on wearing grand, gold-braided hats indoors. Some thought him a drug-addled joke; yet he held the feared Gestapo under his belt, having wrestled it from the SS in the fifties, and under his boisterous, charming mask was a cruel streak a mile wide.

To the right was a hunched, gaunt man, his face almost resembling a skull. This was Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Propaganda, who had expanded his fief to include the Berlin Police, the city’s garrison, the Hitler Youth and the brand new television stations. It was Goebbels who had flooded the European airwaves with crude, anti-Semitic caricatures and pulpy, one-dimensional tales of martial derring do. It was he who controlled what was known and what wasn’t known. It was he who ensured the dark rumours of what was happening in the East remained merely that - rumours.

These were the so-called ‘moderates’ - a tentative, creaking faction defined only by a mutual opposition to Heinrich Himmler and the SS, and a determination to avoid the collapse of the Reich.

The others took their seats, but Shiro made sure to stand, as inconspicuous as possible, by the door.

“Ambassador Clay! Ambassador Profumo!” Goering extended his arms, beaming. “I trust you’ve enjoyed Berlin?”

“Yes, it has been a delight,” Clay lied smoothly.

“Indeed,” said Profumo. “But we really ought to get down to business, Herr Reichsmarschall. Her Majesty’s Government is keen to get this trade deal sorted.”

“You were a general under Eisenhower, were you not?” asked Goering, smiling plainly at Clay. “I always felt he was cruelly treated by the American government, you know? I-”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Goering,” said Clay. “President Nixon has a few preconditions to opening trade with your nation, which I’ve taken the liberty of writing down.”

He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a scrap of paper.

“Uh, Herr Ambassador, surely we should start by telling you what we want out of-” Speer began.

Clay raised his brow.

“Mr. Speer, let me be frank,” he said. “Germany’s credit rating is atrocious. One American dollar buys ten Reichsmarks. You have no international market for any of your products. Americans don’t want Fanta and Volkswagens, they want Coca-Cola and Fords. Your bargaining power is nearly nonexistent. Depending on what we negotiate, all that might change, but let me make this entirely clear, gentlemen; you are not in a position of power right now.”

He paused, letting his words sink in. Speer seemed to pale slightly, and Bormann sank in his chair. Goebbels didn’t initially seem to move, but Shiro could just about see his hands shaking. Goering still smiled, but it seemed decidedly _pained._

He took a deep breath. “_Right,_” he said, his voice laboured. “Of course. Please, Herr Clay, your proposal.”

Clay leaned forward.

“Caucasus oil. Ruhr coal. Steel. Rubber. Maize from the Ukraine. These are the things America wants, not your dinky little Beetles.”

“Please, the Fuhrer doesn’t like the term Bee-” interrupted Bormann.

Clay raised his hand to shut him up.

“Most of all,” continued Clay. “We want uranium. We know there are deposits in the former Soviet Union. We want it; we want to survey for it, we want to build mines, we want uranium from the existing mines.”

He slipped the paper over to Goering.

“Here’s our offer.”

Goering picked up the paper, scrutinising it carefully. His face blanched, and he handed it over to Goebbels, shaking his head.

“The offer is… I’m going to be quite honest, Herr Clay, we expected-”

“That is the President’s proposal, Mr. Goering,” Clay replied simply.

“But… but the prices…” Goering blinked, slowly and deliberately. “And… the American market…”

“Once we have traded for a few years, we can talk about selling German products on American markets,” said Clay.

“I…”

“This is _robbery!_” Goebbels sprung to his feet, shaking with rage as he pointed at Clay. “This is _banditry!_ You would drain Germany dry for a _third_ of the market price, and we would gain _nothing!_”

“We would jumpstart your economy,” said Clay.

“You would hold us _hostage!_” screeched Goebbels, slamming his fist on the table. “You thieves! You _Shylocks!_ No self-respecting nation would ever sign such a deal!”

“You asked a deal like this of the French,” muttered Holt.

Goebbels turned on him, and it was as if his eyes were orbs of fire.

“_We conquered the French!_” he bellowed. “_They were crushed under the Fuhrer’s mighty heel! _Where are your tanks? Where is your boot! We are not _conquered? _We are not _cowed!_ We are _German!_”

“Now, now,” said Profumo, “we are not here to denigrate Germany or Mr. Hitler, we are simply offering a realistic-”

Goebbels now turned on the British ambassador, his fist again crashing against the oak table.

“_You!_” he bellowed. “_Will address him as! The! FUHRER!_”

He punched the table one last time and stormed towards the door.

“Mr. Goebbels, please!” exclaimed Clay. “President Nixon has only-”

“To _hell_ with President Nixon!” spat Goebbels.

He slammed the door behind him.

Speer took a long, deep breath, cradling his temples.

“Well,” he said, “that went well.”

Goering bit his lip.

“Gentlemen, perhaps we can reconvene later, when Herr Goebbels has… _calmed down,_” he said, his voice dripping with contempt at Goebbels’ name.

“That would probably be for the best,” nodded Clay.

There were no further pleasantries - instead the group walked out in awkward, deafening silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Richard Nixon** is, of course, one of the more problematic presidents. I've had a bit of fun with him - instead of being a red-baiter, as he was historically in the 1950s, he's cut his teeth as an anti-fascist 'grey-baiter.' I felt that made sense in a world where it's Nazi Germany, not the Soviet Union, that is seen as the big threat to America.
> 
> **Joe Kennedy**, or to use his full name, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr, was JFK's father, an influential senator, and an all-round horrific human being who authorised the lobotomy of his daughter. Seriously, look that up. He was also the American Ambassador to Britain during the Battle of Britain, and basically nuked his career by implying that fascism would triumph over democracy. Here his career recovered and he was the President before Nixon. **Rockefeller** is Nelson Rockefeller, who in this universe is Tricky Dick's Veep.
> 
> The **Marine Corps** traditionally provide garrisons to America's embassies overseas, and here it's no different.
> 
> The **Volkshalle** was a planned building envisioned by Hitler and Albert Speer. It would have been a ridiculously enormous domed building that would serve as the heart of the Nazi world - it would have been 300ft high. I was debating including it - it's been theorised that it was so big it would have sunk into Berlin's marshy ground, and that the breathing of it's 150,000(!) occupants would have caused precipitation to build in the dome, so that it would literally rain inside - but it's such a darkly iconic image of Hitler's plans that I was remiss not to.
> 
> **Albert Speer** was Hitler's favourite architect and the man in charge of German war production, which put him in charge of organising slave labour in the German armaments factories. He would later try to claim that he knew nothing of the Holocaust, a notion that most historians consider absolutely absurd.
> 
> **John Profumo** was a British Conservative MP most famous for having his career ended by a sex scandal in the early 1960s.
> 
> **Martin Bormann** was Hitler's personal secretary and one of the main party leaders, taking over most of the roles of the disgraced Rudolf Hess after his flight to Scotland in 1941. He excersied immense power through his access to Hitler. He died, probably by suicide, during the fall of Berlin in April/May 1945.
> 
> **Joseph Goebbels** was the mastermind behind the Nazis' propaganda ministry, and in the last year of the war was in charge of the Volksarmee - basically a bunch of old men and children forced to fight the Allies as they closed in on Berlin. After murdering his children, he shot his wife and then himself hours after Hitler's suicide.
> 
> **Fanta** was invented by Nazi Germany when their Coke supplies ran out. The more you know.


	3. Chapter II: The Man With The Iron Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [realfakedoors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realfakedoors/pseuds/realfakedoors) for proofreading!
> 
> This chapter took a while to finish because I was debating how far I wanted to go with it. Ultimately, though, it would be dishonest of me simply to use Nazis as window dressing for a political story, or even to simply allude to the things that they did. That would be trite. I had to _show_ what a Nazi victory would look like away from Berlin. I had to take a snapshot of the world beyond the gaudy uniforms and polished jackboots. If I'm honest, I'm still not entirely sure if I'm going too far.
> 
> In any case, massive content warning on this chapter.

**Chapter II: The Man With The Iron Heart**

_Berlin, 1962_

The diplomats milled about in the hallway outside the meeting room, talking to the Nazi ministers and trying to ignore the fact that the meeting had been an unmitigated disaster.

Into this scene walked a new arrival, one that immediately stood out to Shiro. Even if it hadn’t been for his posture, his features, his expression, the black uniform would have screamed at him. He unconsciously ground his teeth and swallowed - this man was a member of the SS.

Yet it was the face - long, symmetrical, almost handsome - that made his hair stand on end. The man was balding now, and his face was wrinkled, but his blonde hair and blue eyes remained vibrant enough to startle. Shiro knew this man; even if he hadn’t been briefed on all the major henchmen of the Nazi regime, his repuation preceded him. He was the Hangman, the Butcher of Prague, the Blonde Beast of Leningrad.

Shiro fought to keep his face steady as Reinhard Heydrich strolled purposely towards Samuel Holt. Before the man could say anything, the SS man had coralled them toward the wall, almost cornering them by presence alone.

“_Guten Tag_, Herr Holt,” he said evenly. “Welcome to Berlin.”

“I have a doctorate, Herr Heydrich,” replied Holt, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Ah, yes, from… MiT, right?” Heydrich nodded. “An establishment of repute, despite some issues with the faculty.”

“Issues?” Matt frowned.

“Too many Jews,” replied Heydrich simply. “You know how they are. They get into an institution and rot it out from the core. Big problem in German academia back in the Weimar Republic, but…”

“H-Herr Heydrich,” Holt interrupted. “I’ll have you know that I have many good friends who are Jew-”

“Oh, many people do, Doctor Holt,” said Heydrich, as if he were discussing the weather. “_Individual _Jews, why, they’re no different in temperament from you and I. It’s the race as a whole that is… well, problematic. They’re like… it’s the difference between a household cat and a feral cat, doctor. When you have a domestic cat, it’s fine, but when you have a lot of feral cats, you have a problem on your hands.”

“Is that why they call you the Hangman? Because you deal with ‘problems?’”

Heydrich turned on Matt, and the younger man swallowed.

“I deal with miscreants, saboteurs, vagrants, ne'er-do-wells, communists and troublemakers,” replied Heydrich, and despite the genial smile he seemed to ooze hostility. “My boy, as you are none of those things, I’m sure we’ll have no issue… will we, Herr Holt?”

Matt didn’t reply, his face slightly pale. Satisfied, Heydrich turned to Shiro.

Shiro couldn’t describe it, but he felt an _aura _radiating from Heydrich’s eyes. It was cold, and if death had a sensation, it might be like this. It was hard as titanium, pitiless as a storm, murky as a swamp and as devoid of life as the moon.

_Evil_, Shiro decided - that was the only word for this aura. Sheer, pure _evil._

“You are… Japanese?” he asked.

“I’m an American citizen,” replied Shiro. Normally, under such formal circumstances, he would introduce himself with his title… now, however, he thought better of it. “My name is Shiro.”

Heydrich nodded. “A nickname, I presume. Do you know what they call me, Herr Shiro?”

He smiled.

“They call me the Man with the Iron Heart.”

He clapped Shiro on the right arm, and the bodyguard fought the urge to wince. Satisfied, Heydrich turned.

“Have a good day, Doctor Holt,” he said. “Oh! Herr Goebbels! I need to speak with you…”

He walked off, leaving the group in silence. Shiro immediately dropped his defiant facade, shuddering as he rubbed his arm.

“Ugh, I feel _dirty _now,” he muttered.

“Hopefully,” muttered Holt, “we won’t have to deal with that… _man_ again.”

Shiro nodded, but his eyes fell on Heydrich and Goebbels, deep in conversation as they walked away. He felt a slight pit in his stomach.

_No_, he thought, _something tells me we’ll be dealing with Heydrich pretty soon._

* * *

_Reichskommissariat Moskau, 1962_

Moscow had been beautiful once.

When the Germans approached in that terrible November of 1941, much of the so-called Third Rome was destroyed by artillery and aircraft. Stalin had urged its unfortunate people to fight on, even as the panzers encircled the city; the last man to take Moscow was Napoleon, and it had ruined him. Moscow would ruin Hitler too.

But then he’d been killed by a direct hit on the Kremlin. The entire high command had fractured without the supreme leader. With no hope of relief, Moscow was forced to surrender.

They had expected to be treated humanely. The Wehrmacht might be brutal, but surely they were honourable enough to respect the rights of women and children.

Moscow had been beautiful once. It had been a city of four million.

Hitler’s orders were direct and specific. He didn’t want Moscow captured - he wanted it wiped from the face of the Earth, like Carthage before it. The lucky were expelled, or managed to escape. The unlucky faced the tender mercies of the Einsatzgruppen, or the Wehrmacht’s demolition teams. Everything the Hitlerites could get their hands on was destroyed.

As a final insult, the dams on the Moscow-Volga Canal were blown, with the intent of flooding the ruin, of turning it into a lake. Instead it became more of a bog or a swamp, devoid of life. Yet even now, years after the hideous deed, the German Army still sent teams into the wasteland, hunting down any survivors and purging them with the most extreme ruthlessness.

From the old tenament in the empty, half-flooded street, she could still see Nikolai. She didn’t _actually_ know if his name was Nikolai, mind, it just seemed like a fitting name. Every few days for the past two decades, she had seen him through the broken window; the silent sentinel standing guard outside her little hideout.

Or rather, _swinging _guard.

Nikolai was dead, you see. His skin had long rotted away, leaving only weathered bones and the scraps of a commissar’s uniform. The Einsatzgruppen had hung him from a lamp post with a heavy cable used for towing trucks; she still remembered them laughing, absolutely wasted on looted vodka, as they cheerfully hauled him up. He didn’t suffocate as quickly as they’d liked, so they’d prodded him with their bayonets to hear him squirm. As far as formative memories went, it was more than a little disconcerting.

But Amethyst had long become numb to horror.

She turned from the window of the bare, weather-beaten tenament and grabbed the old rifle from next to the door frame. It didn’t work - the bolt had rusted closed, and even if it hadn’t she had no ammunition - but the long, sharp bayonet was good enough to hunt with.

Out the door she went, creeping down a dark concrete stairwell. She could hear the dripping roof and the sound of the wind whistling through the murdered building. When she was a child, in those lonely months after the Nazis terrible retribution, she had imagined ghosts on that wind - ethereal babies crying and mothers weeping, and patriotic slogans on long-silent loudspeakers. But she was older now. She knew there were no such things as ghosts or spirits. The only monsters she had to fear were human.

She slipped past a faded poster affixed to the concrete wall by the entrance, still just about readable - a stark image of a hanging man, a placard hanging from his shoulders that read ‘I betrayed Stalin.’ The caption proclaimed; _Comrades of Moscow! You are the last bulwark against fascism! Do not disgrace yourself!_

Amethyst had to admit it had a point. In the end, for most it had been a binary choice; either the Germans would kill you or the NKVD would. If only they had known that at the time…

“Peter, for fuck’s sake, why do they still make us march through this bog?”

Amethyst slipped behind the door frame and into the shadows, peaking out into the street.

Two Germans strode down the road; if it weren’t for the brown-and-green dotted camouflage and the machine pistols, they would have resembled holidaymakers on a stroll down the street. One was finishing off a smoke, the light of the cigarette illuminating a handsome, young face with icy blue eyes. His friend, cursing and muttering as he trudged through the mud, seemed to have a permanent scowl affixed to his features.

If she looked closely, she could see their collar tabs. They were SS men; hardly the creme of the crop if they were out here. The SS men still in the east were either old soldier-colonists, rewarded for their misdeeds with land and serfs, or members of the units Himmler considered less reliable. Amethyst didn’t know SS regiments off by heart - that would be more than a little creepy - but judging by the age of these men, she guessed they were the latter.

“There are still Russians here, Freidheim,” said the blue-eyed man - Peter, apparently. “I think command said there may be five hundred in the Moskau area?”

“Well send the Luftwaffe to deal with them!” snapped Freidheim. “Just bomb whatever buildings are left and let us go home!”

He slipped momentarily in the mud and swore loudly.

“If we were in one of the panzer divisions,” he spat, “we wouldn’t be out here. But _no_, we have to hang around with Old Man Oskar in the _shit battalions_. I was _this close_ to getting into the Das Reich division, _this-_”

“Mhm,” said Peter dismissively. “Freidheim, you have to understand that we’re living the good life here.”

“The good life?” Friedheim tilted his head.

“Yes,” said Peter. “The men back west live boring lives on garrison duty or strutting like peacocks for fat clowns like Goering. If they want to live well, they have to pay for it; a woman in Paris costs more than what an honest soldier like you and I can afford, and if the military police catch you…”

“Yeah, yeah,” nodded Freidheim.

“We, on the other hand, live the rough lives that make men _men_,” said Peter. “And as our reward, we eat better, we live better and we _sleep _better. After all…” He smiled almost pleasantly. “You don’t have to pay for a Russian whore. You just take them and move on.”

“Unless they belong to an officer, Peter…”

Amethyst clutched the rifle harder but didn’t move.

“Yeah,” nodded Peter. “But then you just shoot them and hide the evidence. They won’t miss one serf.”

Friedhiem nodded.

Whatever else they might have said went unheard as they disappeared around the corner.

Amethyst took a deep breath, and felt the revulsion within her melt away. If she was honest, it upset her how quickly it vanished - how used to it she was by now. Yet she could not dwell in thought or in body. If she sat here and stewed in her feelings, she’d find no deer, and if she found no deer, she wouldn’t eat tonight.

Slowly and carefully, she stepped onto the street. The hunt was on.

* * *

_Federstadt (formerly Dmitrov), Reichskommissariat Moskau, 1962_

The old officer gazed in the mirror, adjusting the collar on his tunic as he reminisced. The brigadier was semi-retired now - one didn’t really _leave _the SS - and had made a decent life for himself in the colonised territories. Behind him, his steward - he called him Franz - carried a bottle, waiting for his employer to ask him to serve it.

“Franz,” the old officer asked, “I’m feeling a bit stiff tonight. I’ll need someone to help me loosen up.”

“Of course, sir,” said Franz.

The officer winced - there was still a _twinge_ of Russian in that accent.

“Get me…” The officer pondered for a moment. “Do you know what? I’ll go and look through the serfs myself. Hand me the bottle, Franz.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Franz handed him the bottle - beer, fresh from Germany - and the officer cracked open the bottle, immediately taking a long chug from the bitter contents. He smiled, slammed it down on the mantelpiece, and turned back to his serf.

“Do you think I look the part of a gentleman, Franz?” he asked. “A member of _polite society?_ Those Wehrmacht officers, they don’t think I’m much of a gentleman, what do you…”

“You… cut a good figure,” said Franz, the Russian in his accent slipping out again.

Immediately, the officer reached for his holster and drew his pistol, thrusting it in Franz’ face. The serf stepped back, his eyes wide, as the officer bellowed at him.

“_Do not interrupt me, you Bolshevik sack of shit!_” he bellowed.

“I… sir, I…”

“No, you’re not just a Bolshevik, are you?” spat the officer. “You’re a _Jew! _I can hear it in your accent! A filthy, degenerate little J-”

“Sir, p-p-please, I’m a Chr-”

The officer pulled the trigger. Franz’ head cracked back, brain matter spraying all over the hallway wallpaper as he tumbled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. As he fell, the officer’s gun followed him, and he shot again, and again, and again…

Before long, the officer was standing over what little remained of Franz’ upper body, pistol clicking uselessly. His face was contorted into an expression of pure rage, his teeth bared, his eyes bulging, his mouth almost frothing.

“_I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERRUPT ME!_” he thundered.

He threw the gun down and kicked Franz’ corpse.

“_FUCKING JEWISH FUCKING SCUM!_”

He spat on his deceased serf and swung round, grabbing the bottle and taking another swig. Once he was done, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“...fuck, I’ve shot another one,” he whispered to himself.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and stepped out of the room, heading towards the front door. _Never mind_, he thought, _there’s plenty more where that came from._

Stepping out onto his balcony, Oskar Dirlewanger took another drink from the bottle as he wandered over to the serf’s quarters. The night was still young, and he meant to spend it well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Reinhard Heydrich** was Himmler's right hand man, the man ultimately responsible for putting the Holocaust in motion in early 1942. Historically he met his justly deserved end during Operation Anthropoid, when British armed and trained Czech partisans bombed his car in Prague. Himmler responded by sending the SS to liquidate the town of Lidice, which had (falsely) been accused of aiding the assassins. All of the nicknames save the 'Blonde Beast of Leningrad' are historical - the latter is an invention, as historically the Nazis never managed to capture Leningrad (although their seige of the city led to the deaths of perhaps one million citizens.)
> 
> The fate of **Moscow** is directly based on Hitler's historical plans for the city, and indeed many cities in Eastern Europe. Warsaw, for example, was to be demolished and replaced with what was perceived as a provincial German town. As the capital of the Soviet Union, which Hitler perceived as embodying everything he despised (remember that communism was considered inherently Jewish by the Nazis), it is easy to imagine him totally destroying Moscow and it's inhabitants, and leaving the wreckage standing as a monument to his victory.
> 
> The conversation had by the SS men is based on transcripts of German POWs secretly recorded by the British during World War II.
> 
> **Oskar Dirlewanger** was a truly vile human being who commanded a brigade in the SS during World War II. Not only was he a committed Nazi, he was a murderer, a pedophile, a sadist, and as if that were not enough, a necrophiliac. I seriously debated including him in this story - suffice it to say, I decided it was worth having to stomach writing this despicable man for the end result (but I may be getting ahead of myself.)


End file.
